By Susan Redden
sredden@joplinglobe.com
CARTHAGE, Mo. — The new head of the Jasper County Emergency Services Board may have a smaller service to supervise.
Jasper County Sheriff Archie Dunn is moving forward with plans to start the department’s own dispatching service. And the Joplin City Council on Monday approved a contract for Joplin’s emergency communications center to provide full-time dispatching for the Duquesne Police Department.
Members of the county board are to meet today to begin narrowing the field of applicants for the post of executive director. The position has been vacant since early February, when Rich Nordell was fired.
That action, taken by a majority of the board, brought criticism from other members, and from spokesmen from some fire departments and other agencies using the county system.
Nordell, who served as director for three years, has hired an attorney and says he will challenge his dismissal.
Bid opening
The Sheriff’s Department will open bids March 30 for equipment and furnishings for a dispatch center at the sheriff’s office building on County Road 180, between Carthage and Joplin.
According to information on the department’s Web site, the office is seeking a computer-based dispatch system and dispatch console furniture.
A spokesman for the sheriff said plans for the new system will be outlined in a release today.
The Sheriff’s Department for several years has contracted with the county to provide dispatching and has paid just more than $110,000 per year for the service. Late last year, Dunn announced plans to establish a separate dispatching operation for the department. He said he was unable, at the separately operated system, to implement policies specific to law enforcement operations. He described as “inadequate” the flow of critical information from dispatchers to officers on the street. He also said it was unlikely he would be able to work efficiently with Nordell.
The sheriff also cited those reasons in turning down an offer from the 911 board to allow his employees to work as dispatchers stationed at the center at no cost to the department. Some on the board said they would prefer that the sheriff’s dispatching operation remain at the county center, rather than to see more tax dollars spent on another operation.
Deal with Joplin
Plans by the Duquesne Police Department to move its dispatching arrangement have nothing to do with issues cited by the sheriff and everything to do with the strength of Joplin’s radio system, according to Tommy Kitch, Duquesne police chief.
Duquesne has been using Joplin for some of its dispatching since September 2008, in the wake of what Kitch described as “a couple of officer safety issues” in which officers were out of their cars and lost contact with the county service on their portable radios.
“Joplin has a very robust radio system very well-suited for our purposes,” Kitch said. “We back each other up, and we share a lot of the same roadways, so it just makes sense.”
Kitch said officials are working out the starting date for the new, full-time arrangement. Duquesne will pay $6,664 per year for the service.
The sheriff’s office, in this year’s budget, has allocated just more than $55,000 for a half-year’s dispatching by the county board. The budget also estimates expenditures of just more than $169,000 for software and maintenance for a dispatch system, plus additional personnel expenses.
The Sheriff’s Department has had money to expand staffing and programs since voters in 2005 approved a quarter-cent sales tax for law enforcement.
The county 911 dispatching operation is funded by a sales tax of one-tenth of a cent, and Joplin has a half-cent sales tax that helps finance city public safety operations.
Nearly $1.3 million is spent annually on emergency dispatching in Joplin, according to the city budget. The budget for the county dispatching operation is $1.5 million.
Meeting
The Jasper County Emergency Services Board will meet at 2 p.m. today to review applications for the executive director’s post. More than 40 resumes have been received, members said.
